Lynda Bellingham - IMDb IMDb 20 January 2017 3:56 PM, UTC NEWS Actress | Producer Lynda Bellingham was born on May 31, 1948 in Montréal, Québec, Canada as Meredith Lee Hughes. She was an actress and producer, known for Loose Women (1999), All Creatures Great and Small (1978) and Second Thoughts (1991). She was married to Michael Pattemore , Nunzio Peluso and Greg Smith . She died on October 19, 2014 in Westminster, London, ... See full bio » Born: a list of 940 people created 22 Jan 2012 a list of 21 people created 13 Sep 2014 a list of 27 people created 31 Dec 2014 a list of 136 people created 7 months ago a list of 27 people created 4 months ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Lynda Bellingham's work have you seen?

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(TV Series documentary) Herself 2007 Doctor, Doctor (TV Series) Herself 2006 My Bare Lady (TV Series) Herself - Dinner guest 2006 An Audience with Coronation Street (TV Movie documentary) Herself 2005 Songs of Praise (TV Series) Herself 2004 Hell's Kitchen (TV Series) Herself 2004 Antiques Auction (TV Series documentary) Presenter 2003 Stars Reunited (TV Series documentary) Herself 2002 Richard & Judy (TV Series) Herself 2001 So Graham Norton (TV Series) Herself 2000 Bob Martin (TV Series) Herself 1993-2000 This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary) Herself 1999 Call My Bluff (TV Series) Herself 1998 Light Lunch (TV Series) Herself 1995 Surprise Surprise!

(TV Series) Herself 1995 Comic Relief (TV Special) Herself 1995 Pebble Mill (TV Series) Herself 1994 An Audience with Bob Monkhouse (TV Special documentary) Herself 1986 All Star Secrets (TV Series) Herself 1984 The South Bank Show (TV Series documentary) Herself - Narrator 1980 Star Games (TV Series) Herself - Commentator 2009-2016 Loose Women (TV Series) Herself 2009 Gok's Fashion Fix (TV Series documentary) Herself Personal Details Other Works: She acted in Simon Mendes Da Costa's play, "Losing Louis," at the Hampstead Theatre in London, England with Emma Cunniffe, Jason Durr, David Horovitch, Brian Protheroe, and Alison Steadman in the cast. See more » Publicity Listings: 2 Print Biographies | 2 Interviews | 1 Pictorial | 1 Magazine Cover Photo | See more » Official Sites: Did You Know?

Personal Quote: [talking about the book she has written about her battle with terminal colon cancer, and her decision to stop chemotherapy so she can spend one final Christmas at home with her family] It will be very embarrassing if I *don't* die, because everybody will think I've made it all up to sell the book! See more » Trivia: Calendar Girls on Stage in London See more » Star Sign: Lynda Bellingham - Mirror TV Lynda Bellingham Lynda Bellingham was an actress and broadcaster who was a panellist on the ITV chat show Loose Women. She was also a presenter on My Tasty Travels and Country House Sunday. Lynda’s OXO TV ads ran from 1983 to 1999 and featured her as the long-suffering mother in a squabbling family. In July 2013, Lynda announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer and in September 2014 she revealed it is terminal. She died on October 19 2014. Lynda Bellingham Country - Lynda Bellingham Net Worth Lynda Bellingham Country Read more...

Lynda Bellingham Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham is Presenter | Actor. Lynda Bellingham Date of Birth is 1948-05-31. Lynda Bellingham Nickname is Meredith Lee Hughes. Lynda Bellingham Height is 1.626 m. Lynda Bellingham Ethnicity is White British. Lynda Bellingham Coun... Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham is Presenter | Actor. Lynda Bellingham Date of Birth is 1948-05-31. Lynda Bellingham Nickname is Meredith Lee Hughes. Lynda Bellingham Height is 1.626 m. Lynda Bellingham Ethnicity is White British. Lynda Bellingham Country is Montreal.

Lynda Bellingham is a Canadian-born English actress, broadcaster and author, best known for her being a panellist on the ITV lunchtime chat show Loose Women between 2007 and 2011 and presenting the ITV lifestlye programmes My Tasty Travels and Country House Sunday. Lynda got her big break starring as a nurse in an ITV afternoon soap opera of the 1970s, General Hospital and has since go on to star in several other television dramas and sitcoms, theatrical and productions and pantomimes. Bellingham was born in Montreal and brought up in Aston Abbotts in Buckinghamshire, England. She was educated at Aylesbury High School and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Twice in the 1960s, Bellingham appeared in the Pendley Open Air Shakespeare Festival. In October 2007, she appeared in a play entitled Vincent River at the Trafalgar Studios in London. Her performance received critical acclaim, and it was announced on Loose Women in early 2008 that the p...

Lynda Bellingham - obituary - Telegraph Obituaries Lynda Bellingham - obituary Lynda Bellingham was a versatile actress who as the Oxo mum brought 'man-appeal’ to the business of gravy-making Lynda Bellingham Comments Lynda Bellingham, who has died aged 66, became a minor national treasure playing the “Oxo mum” in a series of television commercials that ran for 16 years; in the 1980s she was also cast as Helen Herriott in All Creatures Great and Small. When the BBC’s popular Saturday night drama series — based on James Herriott’s novels about the ups and downs of life as a rural vet in the Yorkshire Dales — launched in 1978, the part of James’s wife was taken by the actress Carol Drinkwater. But when the series resumed in 1988 after an eight-year break, Lynda Bellingham took over, bringing to the part what one critic called “a slight but unwelcome element of brittleness”, and remaining for the final three series.

But that was nothing compared with the epic 16 years she spent as the wholesome middle-class mother in the Oxo television commercials making gravy as her on-screen family squabbled around her. Chosen from 1,500 hopefuls in 1983, she and her screen family became the successors to Katie, Philip and their children, the original Oxo family who dominated television advertising for a generation. “No half-respected actor would consider it,” she mused once, “but thank God it hasn’t ruined my career.” In retrospect, she was grateful for the part (“it paid for school fees and a nice house”), and recognised that the mini-dramas played out in the various advertisements had broken new ground as the first soap-style commercials. Certainly, as The Daily Telegraph noted in 1988, creating a warm, human feeling about stock cubes was a triumph of emotionally manipulative copywriting.

Related Articles Simon Ward 23 Jul 2012 While at the height of her fame as Britain’s gravy-boat queen, Lynda Bellingham coped with a personal crisis when her second marriage broke down amid allegations that her husband, Nunzio Peluso, had subjected her to violent outbursts, had held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her, and was stalking her. Finally, in 2000 following their divorce, Peluso was fined £4,000 for harassing her and handed a seven-year restraining order. The Oxo campaign was showered with industry awards, and adding “man-appeal” to the business of gravy-making made her one of the most recognisable women in Britain. But it was pulled in 1999, when the Oxo makers decided that the idea of a family sitting down to eat together was “just completely outdated”. For her part, Lynda Bellingham felt depressed that family meals had been deemed a thing of the past; on the other hand, she blamed the mumsy image it perpetuated for her not being considered for the part of the man-eating Mrs Robinson in the West End stage version of The Graduate.

The demise of the Oxo campaign signalled a marked change of direction, and she appeared on American television as a brothel-keeper in a drama about Hans Christian Andersen, and on British screens she was seen in bed with Albert Finney in My Uncle Silas, a kind of homage to Finney’s famous 1963 film role in Tom Jones. Not that she was a stranger to raunchy roles. She was Jimmy Tarbuck’s stooge, a nurse called Norma Snockers (complete with uplift bra), in the 1973 television series Tell Tarby, made her film debut in the lewd Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers (1977), and was the saucy star of Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976), produced by her first husband Greg Smith (she regretted doing both films). More to her liking was the role of Alexandra, the ill-fated wife of Czar Nicholas, which she played in a $12 million Russian epic filmed in Russia called The Last Days of the Romanovs (1997).

Lynda Bellingham and Christopher Timothy in All Creatures Great and Small (BBC) Lynda Bellingham was born Meredith Lee Hughes on May 31 1948 in Montreal, Canada, to an unmarried teenager called Marjorie Hughes, and adopted by a British family called Bellingham when she was four months old. When her adoptive father, a BOAC pilot, retired from flying to farm at Aston Abbotts near Aylesbury, she attended Aylesbury High School for girls. She appeared in several school plays and performed at a local Shakespeare festival as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1966 she enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Television fame arrived in 1971 when she appeared in General Hospital. As the Oxo campaign became part of the national landscape she sought some variety by starring with James Bolam in the decidedly adult ITV sitcom Second Thoughts (1991), and then as Faith in the spin-off hit comedy series Faith in the Future (1995-8), with Julia Sawalha playing her grown-up daughter, which won the British Comedy Award for an ITV show in 1997.

In 1994 she was cast as the soft-hearted Mrs Lupin in the BBC’s adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit, and in 2000 she starred in the women’s drama At Home With The Braithwaites. A stint on The Bill as the evil Irene Radford in 2004 was followed between 2007 and 2011 by regular appearances as a panellist on ITV’s lunchtime chat show Loose Women. On the stage she made an early appearance as a tart in Norman, Is That You? (Phoenix, 1975) starring the comedian Harry Worth, and in 1981 was Richard’s Queen in Robin Lefevre’s production of Richard II at the Young Vic. Feminists protested outside the theatre when she played a seasoned striptease artiste in Peter Terson’s Strippers (Phoenix, 1985), although she was the only woman cast member not required to shed any clothes. She starred with David Jason in Look No Hands (Strand) and with Janet Suzman and Maureen Lipman in The Sisters Rosensweig (Old Vic, 1994).

More recently her stage work included Losing Louis with Alison Steadman and Sugar Mummies at the Royal Court. She counted her starring role in Calendar Girls on a national tour (2008-09) and in the West End as one of her greatest triumphs. In 2002 Lynda Bellingham endured another personal drama when her home in north London was firebombed as she slept by a former tenant, whom she believed was mentally disturbed, and who subsequently killed himself. In 2013 she announced she had been diagnosed with colon cancer , and the following year revealed it had spread to her lungs and liver. In August 2014 she decided to end her chemotherapy treatment, but hoped she would survive to see her final Christmas. She published a volume of memoirs, Lost and Found, in 2010 and a second, There’s Something I’ve Been Dying to Tell You, in 2014. An accomplished cook, she confessed to always using Oxo in her gravy, but revealed that her secret was to add half a pint of sherry. She was appointed OBE in 2014.

Lynda Bellingham’s first marriage in 1975, to the Confessions film producer Greg Smith, lasted only a year. With her second husband, Nunzio Peluso, whom she married in 1981, she opened an Italian restaurant in Muswell Hill, north London, and had two sons. The marriage was dissolved after 15 years, and although she said she would never marry again, on her 60th birthday, in 2008, she married her third husband, Michael Pattemore. He and her two sons survive her. Lynda Bellingham, born May 31 1948, died October 19 2014 Lynda Bellingham Dies After Cancer Fight Lynda Bellingham Dies After Cancer Fight Lynda Bellingham Dies After Cancer Fight More Actress Lynda Bellingham, best known for playing the mother in the Oxo television adverts, has died. She died "peacefully in her husband's arms" at a London hospital, her agent said. The 66-year-old had colon cancer and last month said she planned to end life-extending chemotherapy treatment.

The actress said she wanted to spend one last Christmas with her family after the disease had spread to her lungs and liver. Her role as the mother in a squabbling family in the Oxo adverts made her familiar to millions in the 1980s. Career highlights also included TV series All Creatures Great And Small, sitcom Faith In The Future, competing in Strictly Come Dancing, and starring in the stage production of Calendar Girls. In her autobiography, the actress described her decision to end treatment for cancer, which she had been diagnosed with in July 2013. "I sat down with (husband) Michael and Professor Stebbing and announced: 'The time has come to cease and desist. "'I would love to make one more Christmas, if possible, but I want to stop taking chemo around November in order to pass away by the end of January'." In another excerpt she wrote: "I don't want the boys or my husband to see me die a little sad old lady.

I want to go out there as I am." Speaking on ITV show Loose Women, where she was one of the presenters, she told viewers: "Grasp it all, don't be afraid, enjoy the bits you can and tell your family you love them while you have the chance." Her pre-recorded farewell appearance on the show will go out on Wednesday. Earlier this year, Bellingham also picked up an OBE from Buckingham Palace in recognition for her 40-year career. Her agent, Sue Latimer, issued a statement on behalf of her family: "As an actor, writer and presenter, Lynda was a consummate professional to the very end. "Those of us privileged to have known her personally will miss the entertaining, life enhancing, true and honest friend that blessed our lives." The family also thanked nurses "for their tremendous care and support". Actor Simon Pegg was among those to pay tribute on Twitter - he appeared alongside the actress in 1990s show Faith In The Future. "Lynda Bellingham, a gorgeous, brassy, funny, generous, talented human being. My first TV mother figure and a treasured friend," Pegg tweeted.

Former Loose Women star Denise Welch wrote: "I loved my friend Lynda. I will miss her so much. xx". Carol McGiffin, who was also on the show, posted: "A very sad day indeed, rest in peace my friend @LyndaBellingham." Bellingham was born in Montreal, Canada, but was adopted by a British couple and grew up near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. She married three times and has two sons. Reblog Lynda Bellingham dead: Tributes and live reaction after the actress died on Sunday - Mirror Online Celebs Lynda Bellingham dead: Tributes and reaction after TV star loses her battle with bowel cancer The TV star had revealed she was terminally ill with cancer and appeared on chat show Loose Women just days before her death Share Lynda Bellingham has died (Photo: Alan Olley / Scopefeatures) Share Get celebs updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Lynda Bellingham - Lynda Bellingham Net Worth Lynda Bellingham Read more... Lynda Bellingham Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham is Presenter | Actor.

Lynda Bellingham Date of Birth is 1948-05-31. Lynda Bellingham Nickname is Meredith Lee Hughes. Lynda Bellingham Height is 1.626 m. Lynda Bellingham Ethnicity is White British. Lynda Bellingham Coun... Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham Net Worth is $10 Million. Lynda Bellingham is Presenter | Actor. Lynda Bellingham Date of Birth is 1948-05-31. Lynda Bellingham Nickname is Meredith Lee Hughes. Lynda Bellingham Height is 1.626 m. Lynda Bellingham Ethnicity is White British. Lynda Bellingham Country is Montreal. Lynda Bellingham is a Canadian-born English actress, broadcaster and author, best known for her being a panellist on the ITV lunchtime chat show Loose Women between 2007 and 2011 and presenting the ITV lifestlye programmes My Tasty Travels and Country House Sunday.

Lynda got her big break starring as a nurse in an ITV afternoon soap opera of the 1970s, General Hospital and has since go on to star in several other television dramas and sitcoms, theatrical and productions and pantomimes. Bellingham was born in Montreal and brought up in Aston Abbotts in Buckinghamshire, England. She was educated at Aylesbury High School and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Twice in the 1960s, Bellingham appeared in the Pendley Open Air Shakespeare Festival. In October 2007, she appeared in a play entitled Vincent River at the Trafalgar Studios in London. Her performance received critical acclaim, and it was announced on Loose Women in early 2008 that the p... Lynda Bellingham | Chickipedia Forgot password? Create account Lynda Bellingham Lynda Bellingham (born 31 May 1948) is a Canadian-born English actress. Bellingham is possibly best known for being a panelist on Loose Women. DETAILS Add Lynda Bellingham (born 31 May 1948) is a Canadian-born English actress.

Bellingham is possibly best known for being a panelist on Loose Women. She is also known for her starring roles in Second Thoughts as Faith Grayshot and in All Creatures Great and Small as Helen Herriot. She was born in Montreal due to her father working for the airline BOAC, and was brought up in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England and was educated at Aylesbury High School. She got her big break as a nurse in an ITV afternoon soap opera of the 1970s, General Hospital. She also went topless for her role in Confessions of a Driving Instructor. Her most famous role was in the 1980s as the head of the family in the Oxo television adverts. Other prominent roles included the James Herriot drama All Creatures Great and Small (where she was the second actress to play Helen Herriot on television, replacing Carol Drinkwater) and the situation comedy Second Thoughts and its sequel, Faith in the Future. She starred in the 14-part Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord (1986) as the Inquisitor. Bellingham reprised the Inquisitor character for the Big Finish Productions audio series, Gallifrey.

In 1998 she appeared in Gleb Panfilov's The Romanovs: A Crowned Family as Empress Alexandra. From 2000 to 2004, Bellingham played Pauline Farnell, the compassionate accountant in At Home with the Braithwaites alongside Amanda Redman and former All Creatures Great and Small colleague Peter Davison. For several months in 2004, she had a recurring role in The Bill as villainess Irene Radford. In 2007, Lynda joined the panel of chat show Loose Women, played Mrs. Wadlow in comedy series Bonkers and filmed guest appearances in episodes of Love Soup and Robin Hood. Since the middle of the year, Lynda has been doing the voice-over on the Vodafone adverts with the slogan: Make the most of now. In October 2007, she appeared in a play entitled Vincent River at the Trafalgar Studios in London. Her performance received critical acclaim and it was announced on Loose Women in early 2008 that the play would be moving to Broadway in July of that year.

From September 2008 she has been playing the role of Chris Harper in the stage version of Calendar Girls. On 26 January 2009 Linda appeared on BBC's The One Show. Bellingham has been married three times. Her first marriage was to producer Greg Smith. Her second marriage (1981 - 1996) was to Nunzio Peluso with whom she had two sons. On 14 August 2007, it was announced that Bellingham had accepted a marriage proposal from her partner, Spanish-based mortgage broker, Michael Pattemore. She married Pattemore (known on Loose Women as "Mr Spain") on 31 May 2008, her 60th birthday. Bellingham states that she doesn't have many passions, apart from reading and horses. She originally had horse-riding aspirations, but they were dashed by the onset of hayfever in her teens.

Lynda Bellingham: I have weeks left so I've picked the date I'll die | Daily Mail Online comments Lynda Bellingham, 66, was diagnosed with colon cancer and lesions on her lungs and liver last year Cancer, what do you mean cancer?’ I asked in amazement. The pleasant gentleman in front of me visibly crumpled. He stared at his computer then seemed to pull himself up and looked me straight in the eye. ‘I am so terribly sorry, I thought you had already been informed of your position. You have cancer of the colon, and lesions on your lungs and your liver.’ It was July 2013, and I felt nothing except disbelief. Me? Cancer? Never. I was suddenly aware of Michael, my dear, darling husband, sobbing in the chair next to me. I switched into actress mode. The surgeon sitting in front of us looked uncomfortable and said: ‘The point is, Lynda, we need to get on and do something about your state of health pretty quickly.’ Back out on Harley Street, lined with gorgeous rows of elegant houses and glossy front doors, we held each other and tried to stop the tears from flowing.

All around us people were hurrying to and fro and horns blared. Life goes on. We bowed our heads and turned into each other as though protecting ourselves from a storm. June-July 2013 Just the month before, I had received the news I had been waiting for. I wanted people to appreciate my talents beyond Oxo gravy or being a Loose Woman, as I had really struggled over the past couple of years to persuade anyone in TV to give me a break. The answer was always the same: ‘It’s difficult to get away from that image and be taken seriously.’ Television did not seem to beckon so I looked to the stage, and there was [producer] David Pugh one day, sitting in the alleyway outside Sheekey’s restaurant in Covent Garden, with a fantastic suggestion. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share He still owned the rights to A Passionate Woman by Kay Mellor and this would be the play to set me back on course. It is a brilliant piece of writing, a very dark comedy about a woman in her late 50s on the day her son is getting married.

She is in a loveless marriage, and the thought of life stretching before her without her beloved son produces some surprising reactions from her and everybody around her. I was so excited about this production. I had an action-packed day when we auditioned five Polish actors to play opposite me. I then had the onerous task of spending a morning snogging five young, handsome Polish actors. I didn’t mention this to hubby at the time! Lynda married Michael Pattemore in 2008 and now hopes to spend as much time with him and her children As we waved goodbye at the end of the day, and agreed we were all looking forward to the read through in a few weeks’ time, I was on cloud nine. The day of the read through did, indeed, arrive, on June 28, 2013 – a day I will never forget. I had been quite ill the Christmas before and Michael had taken me to A&E. I had been having really bad indigestion and then diarrhoea quite badly, and I was short of breath. We finally saw a doctor who said that it was probably nothing and to take Omeprazole for a couple of weeks.

I did, and everything seemed to clear up. On the morning of the read through I had been told there was a problem with a shadow on my liver, and that I must cancel my holiday to Greece, starting that Sunday, and go and see a colon specialist on the Tuesday. The day finally came and those unforgettable words resounded round the surgeon’s office – ‘Now about your cancer Miss Bellingham,’ and, well, you know the rest by now. With A Passionate Woman I had finally found a project that was exciting and would set me off again on the road to acting glory! I joke, but believe me, acting is a very tough and cruel business to survive in, and I intended to survive to my dying day. Yet now suddenly, ironically, I faced my dying day, and I was going to have to give up my dream. Lynda, who was a panellist on Loose Women and starred in the OXO adverts in the 1980s, has weeks to live July-September 2013 We are due to see the oncologist. I look around the quiet waiting room and everywhere there is evidence of this dreadful disease. Heads shaved or covered in colourful scarves. Faces drawn and hollow.

Others sitting alone, erect and defiant. I feel just empty and disbelieving. When my turn comes, Professor Justin Stebbing says it seems likely I’ve had the tumour for at least 18 months. Instead of operating he thinks I need to start the chemotherapy as soon as possible as there are secondaries on the lungs and the liver. I have this huge lump in my throat and a desire to burst into tears, but do not want to be embarrassing. He explains he is going to blast me with the strongest chemotherapy they have, a mixture of Avastin and Oxaliplatin and the fabulous fluorouracil, also gloriously known as ‘FU2’. How wonderful is that? From that moment on I christen my cancer FU2. The routine for my treatment is pretty much the same each fortnight. I arrive at the London Oncology Clinic with my sample of wee and sit in a lovely chair which goes up and down and round and round and I am hooked up to my drip. Then they flush you out with something ready for the first cocktail.

The actress (pictured in 2010) has received several sessions of chemotherapy since June last year The fluorouracil comes in the form of a transparent rubber ball, which sits neatly into a blue purse on a belt. The chemo is automatically fed from this ball over the next 48 hours, so I am free to go home. Come Sunday morning, a lovely BUPA nurse pays a visit and removes the remains of the ball, so that I am free once more. The extraordinary thing is that on chemo weekends I have so much energy because of the steroids and I zip around like a mad thing. The downside is that it is difficult to sleep. This first weekend is fantastic. I get up as soon as it is daylight and start cooking. The boys all come round for Sunday lunch and we watch Andy Murray win Wimbledon. What a triumph. I’ve been given various pills to take every day and line them up on the kitchen counter. What a palaver. I have anti-sickness pills, painkillers, indigestion pills, blood pressure pills… Two days after chemo I have to take an injection for the white blood cells. The side effect is three days of flu-like symptoms.

By the second session I have started to develop pins and needles in the tips of my fingers and toes. It’s not unpleasant but distracting. The skin on my hands and fingers is starting to peel, and by the end of my third session I have no ridges to my fingers and the fingerprint recognition feature on my laptop no longer recognises me. The worst effect is that for a day after chemo, it is as though I have a row of razor blades at the back of my throat every time I swallow. It is agonising. There is also a problem now with cold things. If I take something from the supermarket fridge or freezer I get cold freeze burns. It is like a mission to the North Pole! It is becoming all too clear that my acting career is nearly at an end. I’m devastated when I realise that I will have to cancel a planned tour of A Passionate Woman – I’d been so excited by the project. I ask my oncologist if there is any way I can have my chemo sessions at different hospitals around the country when I tour. But I’m clutching at straws, and I know it. I’m already experiencing fatigue and flu-like symptoms. It would be impossible to hold a performance together night after night.

So that is that. My career is to end, just like that. Oh, I could maybe do the odd appearance in a TV drama. Or maybe some reality things and documentaries, but as to any more life-changing career roles? I’m stuck with the part of cancer victim. To live without working is just unbearable. I have been an actress for 45 years. I am defined by my work, in a way, as so many of us are. Lynda says she has been in and out of hospital since she was diagnosed but is trying to remain positive The chemo is really starting to kick in. The pins and needles are very annoying, and bizarrely the bottom of my feet really hurt when I try to stand up. For the first couple of minutes I’m like a woman of 110. One Monday, the nurses and the doctor on duty explain that the pain is being caused by the cancer trying to fight back against the chemo, so the therapy must be doing something right. They remind me that the cancer had been reduced and the tumour in the colon was shrinking. I go home with a real feeling that I will crack this.

November 2013 For some reason the chemo has stopped working, so Justin gives me a different set of chemical goody bags. Another 12 sessions and things are still not improving, though. I now feel very tired all the time and sick after meals. Meals? That is also a joke as my taste buds seem to have disappeared completely. Everything tastes like cardboard. Gradually I am becoming the face at the window looking in on a life I once knew. But I’m determined not to let the sadness win, and push myself to be social. Then, just as I seem to have found a sense of calm and pretend normality, once again disaster strikes and I’m back in hospital. The pains in my stomach have become unbearable and my prognosis has now changed dramatically. I will not be ending my chemotherapy in December as hoped. I’m told I will probably have a couple of weeks over Christmas chemo-free, then I’ll be back into the routine again. It is made clear to me that I will have to have chemo for the rest of my life to keep the thing at bay.

The actress, who was looking forward to starting in a play when she was diagnosed, starred in Calendar Girls December 2013 On December 11, I find myself in a wheelchair on my way to hospital – yet again. Suddenly I’m so frightened. That night, and the following night, are horrific. Strangely enough it might have been better to be in a ward rather than my private room, because I begin to feel like I’ve been abandoned. No one comes for hours. My mind is slow but is still going round in circles. What is happening to me? The pain hovers on the edge of my consciousness, continually threatening to return. I am terrified. For the next few days I just hang between waking and sleeping. Poor Michael tells me later he thought I was going to die there and then. I just want to grit my teeth and get through the night-time hours that stretch ahead, in that dim blue hospital light, waiting. The doctor then came to visit and explained they were going to try to put a stent in to relieve whatever was blocking my colon. Eventually it is Friday 13th and time to go down for my operation. Friday 13th? It beggars belief!

At 6.30 the porters were pushing me through the automatic doors to the theatre. All Michael could see was a hive of activity the other side. As the doors slowly closed, he was completely alone in the corridor. The silence was terrible. Later Richard Cohen, the surgeon, told him: ‘I have taken out a huge tumour and I could see all the secondaries in the liver. I have had to add an ileostomy, which is like a colostomy bag but for different functions.’ In fact he had arrived in theatre only just in time as the tumour was literally perforating my colon. Lynda wants to stop receiving chemo in November How long do you think she has got?’ asks my dear hubby. ‘Two probably, that is about the norm.’ ‘Is that days, or months, or what?’ says Michael. ‘No, years,’ replies Richard. ‘Oh right,’ Michael nods. ‘Right, I can live with that. Thank you so much, Richard.’ And he gives the man a hug. April-May 2014 Does one choose a funeral with hymns and prayers that suit only the deceased? Surely part of the mourning process is for the loved ones left behind?

Should they not be allowed some say? Michael thinks it would be great for our friend Peter Delaney, the vicar who married us, to come down to Somerset – Michael’s old stomping ground and a place we love – and conduct the service there. ‘I wouldn’t expect everyone to have to come all the way down here to pay their respects,’ I say. ‘I want a tribute, or something that is nice and handy, and anyone who fancies coming in and saying goodbye can do so easily, not have to get on a train for three hours.’ We have reached a compromise, I think, and there will be a service in Somerset and a knees-up in London. So if you are passing, do drop in for a quick boogie. August 2014 It is another fragrant summer’s day and I just cannot believe I am going to die soon. This whole year has been surreal. The time allotted for most people with this stage of cancer is two years and I have already got halfway, which is great. I really am in a good place, all things considered, but yet, as I write this, I feel like screaming with the frustration of it all.

Very slowly, in the past couple of weeks, the effects of the chemo are getting to me more than they have before. My mouth is full of ulcers, so apart from the fact I can’t taste most food any more, I now can’t eat anything because it is so sore. Just as I seem to have found a sense of calm and pretend normality, once again disaster strikes and I’m back in hospital. I’m also suffering from thrush in the throat, which has made my voice go thin and reedy and that upsets me, because one of the things I have been able to do so far is the odd voiceover. But I don’t want you all to think I am feeling sorry for myself, I just want to paint an honest picture of how things are progressing. We had a lovely family lunch yesterday and I went to bed full of hope. Then I woke at three and the darkness took over and I got so frightened. I don’t want to leave my husband Michael, because I know he is going to be so lonely. I know the children will rally round, but he can be a cantankerous old bugger at times.

I would hope, in a way, that Michael does meet a lovely lady, who could look after him and they could have a loving relationship. He says he doesn’t ever want that again, and I understand, but things can happen. However, if that lady was on the lookout for a meal ticket, and decided that my sons’ inheritance was of no consequence, I want to know to the best of my ability I have them sorted. I do recommend that anyone reading this will take note and make a will. Lynda received an OBE in March this year. She is now facing the prospect of having just a few weeks left to live August 13, 2014 Yesterday was the glorious 12th – a day for us to remember because it is also the day I decided when I will die. I am very dramatic, aren’t I? I know it is not ultimately my decision, but it is my last vestige of control to sit in front of the oncologist and say when I would like to stop having chemo and let the natural way do its thing.

It has been a rather fast deterioration over the past couple of weeks, and bizarrely it has been the desire to finish this book that has both spurred me on and finished me off. I am on such strong chemo now that my body is finally protesting. Because I was in such pain and discomfort I decided to go into the clinic and get some help with the symptoms. I don’t want you all to think I am feeling sorry for myself, I just want to paint an honest picture. This is something I have not done all year because I wanted to deal with things by myself. But now the cancer – or rather the chemo – was getting to me. I sat down with Michael and Professor Stebbing and announced: ‘The time has come to cease and desist. ‘I would love to make one more Christmas, if possible, but I want to stop taking chemo around November in order to pass away by the end of January.’ It was such a relief to say the words. Please don’t think I am giving up for the sake of a few ulcers, it is the fact my body has started to rot, and I promised myself as soon as that happened I would make a plan. I want my family to remember me whole.

I want you all to remember me. Abridged from There's Something I've Benn Dying To Tell You, by Lynda Bellingham, published by Coronet on October 9 at £16.99. For a copy at the special price of £15.30, visit mailbookshop.co.uk before October 5. P&P free for a limited time. MOCKED, RIDICULED AND - YES, I'M AFRIAD TO SAY - TOUCHED UP IN THE '70S Enduring star: Lynda posing for a 1970s photoshoot With the recent inquiries into sexual abuse, I was asked to take part in a programme about life in the 1970s and how much things have changed. I must say, looking back, it is amazing. I left drama school in 1969, so much of my career was formed from 1970 through to the early 1980s.

That part of my career saw some good, some bad and even some really bad stuff in the form of my comedy work, which I naively imagined was showing people how versatile I could be when in reality it pitched me into the arms of the ‘tits and arse’ brigade. Almost every photo of me in a comedy saw me either playing a nurse with big boobs or as the only girl in the programme, always wearing a low cut T-shirt or some such nonsense. At that time women were there to be mocked and ridiculed and, yes – I am afraid to say – touched up. I remember a very famous comic saying to me, ‘Now in this scene I am going to drop a pencil down the front of your dress and then I look for it.’ He then spent a good five minutes basically abusing me. I just stood there, not quite knowing what to do, and then turned to the room and said: ‘How funny was that, then?’ They all looked embarrassed, I am pleased to say. But the line between what was acceptable or not was obviously in a different place back then.

Of course there are serious questions to be asked about certain people, and obviously there are real sex offenders out there, but some of these cases now, I think, are way over the top. Do we honestly believe that all these young bands say to their groupies: ‘Now, how old are you and does your mother know you are here in my hotel room?’ I don’t think so! I do blame the parents, because they really do not know where their children are half the time, and they must know that if their daughters go out with not much on they are in a certain amount of danger. I can remember my dear old dad, who was so gentle and shy, telling me to understand the male psyche. As he put it: ‘All men have a basic animal instinct that women do not have, and if a man has not seen a woman for some time, or indeed never, as in some cultures, to suddenly be accosted by the sight of legs and thighs and breasts is just too much for them and they attack.’ I think some of the very liberal thinkers among our female society should take this on board.

I am not saying any young girl deserves to be raped or abused because of how she dresses, but maybe a little thought and understanding of the opposite sex might not go amiss. In hindsight: Lynda says she does regret some of the acting jobs she took on in the early stages of her career But back to the 1970s, and I did have quite a few embarrassing moments, especially if there was a bed scene. I always dreaded them. I had one with an actor much older than me and I was playing his mistress and we were supposed to be making mad, passionate love. We both wore knickers but I had no bra on – ‘Intrinsic to the scene, dear’ is what they always told you. Anyway, the director called action and this dirty old man stuck his hand between my legs. I let out a yell and the director shouted ‘cut’. ‘What on earth is the matter Lynda?’ he asked impatiently. I looked at my co-star, who was smiling at me. Smiling! ‘Nothing, sorry, let’s go again,’ I said as I settled back under the covers. ‘Action,’ cried the director, and with that I grabbed the actor’s crutch and squeezed, hard.

It was his turn to let out a yelp and the director called ‘cut’. ‘What the hell is going on here, you two?’ he asked. ‘Nothing,’ we said in unison, and indeed nothing did happen from then on. That is the way to deal with dirty old men. In the 1970s, every time one had to do a publicity shot it was inevitably a tits and arse number. Not that I ever took my clothes off for the newspapers, but the photographer would always ask you to undo one more button or stick your chest out. Fame: Lynda left drama school in 1969 and formed a large part of her career in the 1970s and 80s That was humiliating, but in those days it never occurred to me to say no. I do regret the jobs I took on in those days, and I do wonder how much it affected my career, but it’s too late to think like that now. I should just be grateful I will never be asked again. Mind you, it is only two years ago that I stopped taking my clothes off nightly in Calendar Girls.

Doing it for that show was so liberating though, for all of us, and it was not as if the audience saw anything. Although, one memorable night in Glasgow, when I had to move upstage to stand at the top of the imaginary hill and encourage the other ladies to strip, I had to take my top off and turn to the audience with my arms strategically crossed over my boobs. In order to get into that position, though, with my back to the audience while I got my bra off, I was very exposed to everyone in the wings. There were supposed to be rules about no male stagehands backstage during this part, but a huge hairy Glaswegian had somehow managed to creep in, and when I noticed him at the side of the stage he was waving at me and giving me the thumbs up with a huge grin on his face. I also appeared in a musical in the West End about the life and loves of Toulouse-Lautrec. One of my roles was as his mistress, Suzanne Valadon, who liked to embarrass Lautrec in front of his mother.

So there was to be this scene where his mother came for tea, and while they were sitting at the table Suzanne would enter, completely naked, and start looking for something on the table, leaning across the mother in a very obvious way. My poor father, on the opening night, asked my mother to tell him when I was about to come on naked and he just hung his head and closed his eyes!

Question: In which country was the former Oxo advert actress Lynda Bellingham born
Answer: TV